


D.A.B.D.A.

by BardofHeartDive



Series: Rise [4]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Acceptance, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anger, Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Bargaining, Canon-Typical Violence, Denial, Depression, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-02-26 01:08:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13225023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/pseuds/BardofHeartDive
Summary: “The five stages [of grief], denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost.” - David KesslerNihlus mourns the loss of his lover and best friend.





	1. Denial

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in Veerla's universe, which is a Reaperless AU where everyone lives.

In hindsight, he should have known as soon as Saren said his name. It isn’t uncommon for Spectres to call each other by their given names in the field but Saren doesn’t. Not even with him. On assignment he is “Kryik.” “Nihlus” is reserved for dinner tables and late night vid-calls. For the bedroom. So when Saren is there, in the midst of bombs and husks and geth, and calling him “Nihlus” he really should have known.   
  
Not that it does him much good now that Saren’s gun is drawn and aimed at his head.   
  
“You don’t understand,” Saren continues. He hasn’t reached ranting yet but he’s headed that way. “The Alliance can’t be trusted! If you board that ship you’re as good as dead and the Beacon will be theirs!”   
  
_ They’re not the one pointing a gun at me, _ he starts to think but he shuts the thought down before it fully forms.   
  
“We swore an oath -  _ you _ swore an oath - to protect the Council and Council space! You can’t let the Beacon fall - ”   
  
Later he will realize what happened, that given the distance hitting the gun at all was hard enough, Shepard had no control over whether or not she hit the eezo mechanisms, but at the time all he knows is that Saren’s hand explodes. He’s flung backwards into a stack of crates and crumples against them, the wind knocked out of him. Something warm splatters across his face but he’s too distracted by the fact that he can’t breathe to consider what.

A flash of blue streaks toward him and turns into Shepard when it stops. She puts herself directly between him and Saren, a faint biotic aura still swirling around her, but there isn’t any more fighting. Not that he can see anyway, with his vision swimming the way it is. Suddenly she’s kneeling next to him, though he has no memory of her moving, and then the tingling cold of medi-gel spreads across his chest. He can breathe again but every breath feels like dragging his lungs against shards of glass.

“Stay here,” she says, as if he has any choice. “Back up from the Normandy is en route. They’ve got a medic with them. I’m going after the other turian.”

Then she’s gone. He barely has time to wonder where Saren went before he loses consciousness.


	2. Anger

Shepard stays for the Alliance’s petition but he doesn’t. There’s no reason to. Saren has been stripped of his Spectre status, ruled a traitor to the Council, deemed a fugitive from the law.

Saren pointed a gun at him.

He pushes down the growl rising his chest and turns his attention back to the crates sent over from the Normandy. Two are Shepard’s, her personal effects and equipment; the other is his gear from Eden Prime. Leaving hers in the cargo bay, he takes his up to the armory. He’ll feel better after spending some time calibrating his scope. The first thing he sees when he lifts the lid is his armor. He can tell that they did a preliminary cleaning before packing it up but there’s still some blood in the joints and the scratches.

Saren’s blood.

His hands shake as he slams the lid back down. He can’t control the growl this time. It rises up from the pit of his stomach, burns in his chest, and tears out of his throat as he overturns the workbench, sending the crate and its contents across the room.

He’s angry. At angry at the Council for giving him the assignment, for making him testify. Angry at the Alliance for getting involved it all. Angry at the geth for being on the planet, at the construction company for finding the Beacon, at the Protheans for leaving the damn things scattered around the galaxy. Angry at the galaxy itself.

Angry at Saren for betraying him.

Angry at himself for not doing . . . something.

He leaves the mess and heads to the kitchen for something to eat but nothing sounds good.

It’s getting late when Shepard arrives. She smells like smoke and alcohol but it’s in her hair and her clothes not her breath. She has a take-out bag from a dextro cafe tucked under her arm.

He’s angry at her too, he realizes as she offers it to him, though he’s not sure if it’s because she took the shot or didn’t shoot to kill or that she knows his favorite flavor of kebab.

Her eyes don’t actually narrow, it’s more of a tightening of the muscles around them, but for the first time he understands the human expression. The tilt of her head is almost imperceptible but the way she studies his face is much more obvious. It’s brief but the intensity of her scrutiny makes the time crawl.

She switches to his language when she says. “I’m sorry. About your friend.”   
  
He knows he should be impressed. Most people, human and turian alike, have a hard time interpreting other species’ body language but in a matter of weeks she’s learned to read him in seconds. For the moment, though, it only makes him angrier.


	3. Bargaining

There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of banks on Illium but he’s only interested in one.

CT Holdings and Financial Services is small, but not notably so, and on the questionable side of respectable. Legitimate enough not to interest the authorities, shady enough not to look too hard into their clients. Shepard had caught him eyeing the front door and excused herself in that simple, unobtrusive way he’s starting to realize is meant to respect his privacy. On an optimistic day, it almost makes him forget her background is in intelligence work. On a cynical one, he wonders if that’s why she does it.

Today he doesn’t care about her intentions. She can make any play she wants as long as he gets to go into the bank alone. 

Like all their other fail-safes, he and Saren had committed countless hours to evaluating the place before selecting it. Everything from direct observation to running background checks on its employees to obtaining a copy of the blue prints from the original contractor. He has a healthy respect for accurate intel but he is nothing compared to Saren when it comes to thoroughness in investigation.  
  
_Maybe this one,_ he thinks, crossing the tiled lobby to the safety deposit box security point.  
  
The VI accepts his biometrics and, recognizing him as a Spectre, simultaneously grants him full access and erases his scans. It asks if he needs further assistance, disappears when he says he does not. He starts with general access information to make sure his search doesn’t inadvertently cover something up. There are no records of Saren but even without Spectre codes that’s an easy wipe.

Everything is clean, so to speak. He’s pretty sure there are four blackmail cases using the bank as a drop point for payments and a dealer hiding what she’s skimmed from her supplier but nothing that helps to point him to Saren. Still, they were both intimately familiar with the bank’s systems; it’s possible Saren was able to get in and out unnoticed. He has always been better at tech.

He calls up the box but hesitates before opening it.

_Please, this one._

Just like all the others, it’s empty.

He goes through the motions anyway, running every check and scan he can think of. As far as he can tell this is the first time it’s been accessed since they rented it more than a decade ago.

Just like all the others, he leaves a single note and locks it back up.

“I can help you. Just come back. Please.”


	4. Depression

Nihlus isn’t sure how long he’s been lying awake in bed but it feels like an eternity. He rolls to one side, then the other, then onto his belly, then his back. He’s too hot with the blankets on, too cold without them, and his pajamas are irritating, even on his plates. He’ll start to drift when a noise from the street below startles him awake then passes, and he strains to catch another one that doesn’t come until he’s half asleep again.

He jumps when his omni-tool pings, the sound grating against his ears. All the same, having a purpose is a blessing and he rolls out of bed to check his tool.

He was expecting Shepard but it’s a sender he doesn’t recognize. That rules out the Council and a few other high ranking politicians, as well as a handful of Spectres. There’s a flash of hope - it could be Saren, he’s clever enough to find a way - which is almost immediately squashed and replaced by the factual knowledge that it’s most likely Captain Kirrahe.

He’s partially right and partially wrong. The message was sent via the SSV Normandy’s comm systems but it is from Kirrahe. The mission on Virmire had been a success, though several salarians and Normandy crew had been wounded. Shepard was in critical condition in the medbay. They were en route to the Citadel, ETA sixteen galactic standard hours.

He stops, staring at the next line of text. 

Saren was at the facility as well. They managed to apprehend him and had him in custody.

A heaviness forms in the pit of his stomach that he would have called disappointment if it had brought any feeling with it. Even between hunting Cerberus, evaluating Shepard, and investigating the geth, Saren had always mattered most. He had wanted to be there when they found him. But now, hearing that they have him, nothing.

He lays back down and watches the colored lights from the Ward play across the ceiling.


	5. Acceptance

To call the place where Saren is being held a “cell” is unfair. It’s about the size of a modest hotel suite or studio apartment. He’s had worse accommodations on assignment, Nihlus has no doubt. Saren himself is draped across the couch thoroughly engrossed in reading a datapad. He’s holding it in his left hand; the other arm ends abruptly just below the elbow.

“The prisoner is fine, thank you,” Saren says, without looking up.

His voice flat and despondent. It makes Nihlus’s chest go so tight he can’t form an actual word so he just hums low with his subvocals. The other turian is within arms’ reach faster than a heartbeat.

“Nihlus. I - ” Saren stops when he realizes how close they are and takes an intentional step backward. “You’re okay.”

“I’m . . . fine.”

“I wasn’t expect visitors.” Saren steps back again and takes a seat on the couch. “You least of all.”

He almost takes if for an insult until he notices Saren tapping a talon into his palm.

“Shepard’s suggestion.”

“Ah, yes. Your protégé. She seems quite capable.”

“She’s a pain in the carina.” Nihlus answers and Saren snorts, a short, hard sound that is as close to a laugh as he has ever gotten. “But she’s good. Quick thinker, fearless, great instincts.”

“Not a bad shot, either.”

Nihlus’s eyes settle on his stump, then a prosthetic discarded on the table. Saren picks it up by the wrist and hands it to him. It’s a nearly perfect replica of a turian forearm and hand, dyed a close match to Saren’s plates, but has no visible mechanisms. All form, no function.

“It’s not mine,” Saren explains as Nihlus turns it over in his hands. “They confiscated it as a security risk.”

“It probably is.”

“Of course, it is. But I’m not going to wear that thing just because they’re uncomfortable.”

Nihlus puts it back on the table. After a moment of standing, which he finds incredibly awkward and Saren doesn’t seem bothered by at all, he sits. The movement is equally awkward - he’s not sure how close is too close or which direction he should be facing - but it feels better to be next to him in the end.

“I’m glad you came,” Saren says finally.

Nihlus trills, a sound that means safe and home but has more than a little longing in it as well. Saren scoots closer to the sound and Nihlus tilts his head to rest against Saren’s.

“Me too,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking with me everyone. It was a long time coming but I'm happy to say that we made it to the end!


End file.
